So, mining with drones is fun, but still isnt rewarding.

[Cmdr Kurnek]

I had a bit of a play in a T7 with drones, had a 5b and 1b collector controller, a 1a prospector, 4A refinery and a crapton of cargo space. Which, as it turns out, is not really needed unless you plan to stay out for over an hour, but nevermind...


So, 4 collector drones working simultaneously, nailing roids with prospectors to find the tasty ones was an amazing experience, props to the beta testers for helping FD improve them. They still bump into the cargo door when you are moving, which needs to be fixed, but otherwise they work perfectly. Congrats!

Using the prospector improved the experience greatly, especially with the addition of 3 mineral roids. Slowly but surely, I think we're seeing progress towards the more complex gameplay of the DDA. Emphasis on slowly, but still.

The main remaining flaw for mining is, as it has ever been, the rewards. An hours mining netted me 900k, but it would have been 600k without a lucky mining mission. compare this to trading, where in an hour in the exact same ship I would have earned 1.5 to 3 million, and it still doesn't quite measure up. Update after update that gap is being closed however, for mining, non-RES bounty hunting and mercs (Combat Zones). Smuggling (outside of missions), exploration and piracy remain out in the cold somewhat, but with any luck they will get some focus in the next big update seeing as mining only really needs profitability tweaks now to make it truly worthwhile.

So we now have 4/7 professions that actually work and are at least reasonably profitable, if still not quite balanced with trading. Much as I complain, things are getting better, and I have some hope now for the rest of the year, provided FD don't get distracted by another flashy layer, and instead show off how awesome they're going to make the core professions. Or a weapons update, where they release some new weapons while taking the opportunity for a comprehensive balance pass on the existing ones would be good...

I stress that all of this is my own opinion from my own experiences, your mileage may vary but I guess that's what discussion is for

 

[CMDR Starschulz]

Mining in a wing within a res site can actually help the money flow in faster.

 

[tomalus]

Being allied with ALL minor factions in a high tech system means you get alot of missions available, also helps if your trade rank is very high.

 

[EUS]

I'm curious about the prospector, do you have to carry 50 to sample 50 asteroids? And what do they do exactly? Ie, what info do they give, and how is the info shown to you?

 

[tomalus]

I'm curious about the prospector, do you have to carry 50 to sample 50 asteroids? And what do they do exactly? Ie, what info do they give, and how is the info shown to you?

1 drone = one asteroid they give you info :

100% remaining >>> figure lowers when you drill with mining lasers, and gives vocal warning "asteroid depleted"

25% painite
20% platinum
29% indite

The prospector is useful only to prospect for painite wich is most rare (for missions).

 

[Bromei Fedaykin]

I have to disagree with you on the prospector's usefulness. I will often pass on asteroids that only have junk minerals, which saves me time. Any of the valuable resources--painite, palladium, platinum, gold, osmium--I will mine if I find them in the roid. Otherwise it is basically just a guessing game.

I think it would probably surprise casual miners to learn that you can make 1.5-2M cr/hour by utilizing the mining missions at multiple stations at a time. Traders seem to be too lazy to carry their cargo from one station to another without offloading, but next time you come back with a hold full of valuable metals and minerals, keep in mind that high tech systems will often pay 200k+ for just 2 or 3 of your resources and each station has different missions. Using your options by utilizing the missions system is key in mining, but it is needed to maximize your profits.

 

[Darth Ender]

to make money mining you select some missions you get your prospector out there and collectors and dual beam it.

The main tediousness that makes mining more annoying than fun is the stupid refinery. It refuses to auto-fill empty spots and there is no way to white or black list items ...also the collector bots can't be programmed to ignore illegal cargo (which accumulates as you kill pirates). That last bit is always nice since cops like to scan you randomly.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

--- Deleted ---

 

[Iskariot]

So, mining with drones is fun, but still isnt rewarding.

I still feel they should have made the actual prospecting process the core of mining game play for us players, because searching and finding good ore is the most exciting part. And the actual mining itself, being more tedious, should have been left to automated droids.
But who knows what is in store for mining in the future...

I also still believe that disposable droids are not a good idea, but that ship has sailed, so I will simply accept the situation as it is.

 

[Monk]

I still feel they should have made the actual prospecting process the core of mining game play for us players, because searching and finding good ore is the most exciting part. And the actual mining itself, being more tedious, should have been left to automated droids.
But who knows what is in store for mining in the future...

I also still believe that disposable droids are not a good idea, but that ship has sailed, so I will simply accept the situation as it is.

Yeah, what if there were a component to mining that occurred in SC?

Perhaps, you could scan an entire ring and relative abundances of metals and minerals could be assessed based on location in the ring. Then you could zero in on the area with the most likelihood of being rich in X. Once out of SC, then you could launch say 5 prospector drones and, based on what you've programmed for, they could find asteroids that contain X or have Y% yield of X. Finally, you zero in on the asteroids that you think would give you the best output and mine as normal.

 

[Oopsie Daisy]

I'm curious about the prospector, do you have to carry 50 to sample 50 asteroids? And what do they do exactly? Ie, what info do they give, and how is the info shown to you?

One drone can be programmed as either a prospector or a collector. Prospectors help you avoid spending time mining a roid that doesn't have in it what you are looking for.

 

[Oopsie Daisy]

I still feel they should have made the actual prospecting process the core of mining game play for us players, because searching and finding good ore is the most exciting part. And the actual mining itself, being more tedious, should have been left to automated droids.
But who knows what is in store for mining in the future...

I also still believe that disposable droids are not a good idea, but that ship has sailed, so I will simply accept the situation as it is.

And to add to that, once you find an asteroid with the metal you are looking for, you should be able to mine it continuously. As it stands now, a few sweeps with dual mining lasers "depletes" the asteroid. The lasers appear to just scratch the surface and for an average sized roid they scratch less than 10% of the surface area. Why can't we mine the interior of asteroids and why only such a small fraction of the surface area?

Fanboys on these forums like to play the "realism" card whenever they make a weak argument so I will one up them and play it first (so I guess my argument is weak lol), it would be more "realistic" if we could continuously mine an asteroid; breaking it apart as we go. But it seems FD wants us to have to fly around a lot from roid to roid instead. Not sure what that accomplishes exactly, but if it is to increase the amount of time it takes to earn money from mining then you could accomplish the same thing by just having to take longer using the lasers.

 

[geoffrey.hdt]

Short story, same story: trading using 3rd party tools is OP, which is why other activities seem so little rewarding.

Bounty farming works continuously only if you use the exploit of re-entering the RES until you get the right instance.
Would I dare to say that trading needs a nerf? Some would say that the boredom of trading is the nerf which is why I do not go for the 4800cr/ton/journey route I have found on a 3rd party tool recently.

If you mine in a time efficient manner at a pristine metallic (not metal rich!) high intensity RES, focusing on painite, platinum and osmium, then go to the nearby high-tech systems to pickup mining mission (you may also use the exploit of re-loging to spawn them), then you may end up with about 1-2 millions per hour, and you can do this in a Cobra (I did it).
Still less than trading in a Python...

 

[Dommarraa]

We need the missions back. For a while after 1.3 there were normally 4 or so missions to accept at a good hi tech system, so I have miming a go. Bought a conda, found my own pristine metallic, and loaded it up. Took about 7 hours, yielding 30 panite with others.

Get back, and I am now lucky to see 2 missions, normally 1 or both of them are for a high trade rank that I dont have. I have spent 4 days travelling about, waiting for mission respawns etc, and I still have not got rid of it all.

Give is our missions or the whole process is pointless.

 

[geoffrey.hdt]

We need the missions back. For a while after 1.3 there were normally 4 or so missions to accept at a good hi tech system, so I have miming a go. Bought a conda, found my own pristine metallic, and loaded it up. Took about 7 hours, yielding 30 panite with others.

Get back, and I am now lucky to see 2 missions, normally 1 or both of them are for a high trade rank that I dont have. I have spent 4 days travelling about, waiting for mission respawns etc, and I still have not got rid of it all.

Give is our missions or the whole process is pointless.

I did that two weeks ago, got between 0 and 4 mining missions while visiting high tech systems. Some days are better than others I believe.

 

[Iskariot]

Yeah, what if there were a component to mining that occurred in SC?

Perhaps, you could scan an entire ring and relative abundances of metals and minerals could be assessed based on location in the ring. Then you could zero in on the area with the most likelihood of being rich in X. Once out of SC, then you could launch say 5 prospector drones and, based on what you've programmed for, they could find asteroids that contain X or have Y% yield of X. Finally, you zero in on the asteroids that you think would give you the best output and mine as normal.

Scanning a ring in SC?
Why did I not come up with that? I have been thinking a lot about mining, but that never occurred to me. That is a wonderful idea. You would have a multi-staged prospecting process that way.

And to add to that, once you find an asteroid with the metal you are looking for, you should be able to mine it continuously. As it stands now, a few sweeps with dual mining lasers "depletes" the asteroid. The lasers appear to just scratch the surface and for an average sized roid they scratch less than 10% of the surface area. Why can't we mine the interior of asteroids and why only such a small fraction of the surface area?

It would be so satisfying if we could tunnel through such an asteroid. Dig a big hole to it's core. I would like that sooo much. It would be fun even if I didn't find anything.